I have a saltwater tank that is dominated by crustaceans. Sexy shrimps, peppermint shrimps, emerald crabs, pompom crabs, some sea anemones, urchins, sponges, and others. I'm thinking if I want to try putting some soft corals into my tank or not.
The tank is for breeding sexy shrimps, peppermint shrimps, and also to experiment with other crustaceans. I have never grown any fish or corals before.
I found out the nutrient levels (especially the phosphate) have gone up pretty high (3ppm po4) some time ago. Although it didn't seem to cause any harm to the livestock, I am in the process of bringing them down by feeding less, ramping up the light on ATS, more frequent floss change etc and it seems to be working well though it'd take some more time. The po4 level is now at somewhere around 1ppm.
Once the nutrients reach reasonable levels, I think I can keep it down by feeding less but I would like to feed more, a lot more. So I was thinking maybe putting in some hardy soft corals like xenia, mushrooms, or star polyps might provide a better environment for the shrimps and crabs and also help with the filtration a little bit?
I don't want to bother keeping them if they don't benefit my livestock much or are high in maintenance. I also read that some of them can grow all over the rock and are hard to trim down if not managed well. I'm also worried that they might cause trace element imbalance since I don't do water changes very often.
I'm not sure if they'd do well in my tank but my sponges seem to grow pretty fast and sea anemones seem to be doing well enough so I thought may be I could manage.
Do you think it would be beneficial for the shrimps, crabs and the filtration? Or should I not bother because it's going to cause more problems and work?
The tank is for breeding sexy shrimps, peppermint shrimps, and also to experiment with other crustaceans. I have never grown any fish or corals before.
I found out the nutrient levels (especially the phosphate) have gone up pretty high (3ppm po4) some time ago. Although it didn't seem to cause any harm to the livestock, I am in the process of bringing them down by feeding less, ramping up the light on ATS, more frequent floss change etc and it seems to be working well though it'd take some more time. The po4 level is now at somewhere around 1ppm.
Once the nutrients reach reasonable levels, I think I can keep it down by feeding less but I would like to feed more, a lot more. So I was thinking maybe putting in some hardy soft corals like xenia, mushrooms, or star polyps might provide a better environment for the shrimps and crabs and also help with the filtration a little bit?
I don't want to bother keeping them if they don't benefit my livestock much or are high in maintenance. I also read that some of them can grow all over the rock and are hard to trim down if not managed well. I'm also worried that they might cause trace element imbalance since I don't do water changes very often.
I'm not sure if they'd do well in my tank but my sponges seem to grow pretty fast and sea anemones seem to be doing well enough so I thought may be I could manage.
Do you think it would be beneficial for the shrimps, crabs and the filtration? Or should I not bother because it's going to cause more problems and work?
